


Patterns for Living

by Chibifukurou



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Supernatural Origins of a Loser</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns for Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storm_petrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_petrel/gifts).



> My beta will be revealed at a later date, but for right now. A HUGE thank you goes out to you for saving me from my own grammatical inadequacies. You rock and I can't believe how awesome you made this fic.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This story was written for personal enjoyment and entertainment purposes.

Granny hummed to herself as she slowly rocked back and forth. Her needles clicked with a soft tick-tick that could barely be heard over the sound of Jenny's TV show. Jenny loved the primary-colored puppets that bobbed across the screen, and Jake wasn't even sure if she remembered that he and granny were in the room.

He didn't mind though. He liked having grandma to himself. 

He leaned back against granny's chair and rocked as the chair rocked, back and forth. The slow hum and the click of the needles lulled him into a doze. He woke up when she poked him in the head with one of her needles. 

"Wake up. No point in sleeping the day away. Plenty of chores you could be doing or books you could be reading."

"But granny," he whined, rubbing his eyes.

She cut him off. "That's enough of that young man. If you don't find something to do, I'll find something for you."

"I like it here."

"Well, you can't just stay here all day."

"Why not?" Jake asked.

"I won't have a lay-about for a grandson."

"I don't want to do anything else."

"Then I guess I don't have a choice. I'll just have to teach you how to knit."

Jake stared at her needles and the half-knitted yarn in her lap. "Really, granny?"

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Do you want to learn?"

"Of course!" 

Who wouldn't? Jake thought. He'd always loved to watch her fingers fly, sweaters and scarves magically appearing in her lap. The patterns she made with the yarn were so beautiful, and when he wore one of her sweaters, it felt like being hugged.

"All right then, I guess there isn't any harm in letting you try. Your sister doesn't seem interested in learning yet."

Of course Jenny wasn't. She didn't want to do anything fun. She just wanted to play with her dolls and watch stupid puppets dance on TV. 

Jake didn't get it. They were twins. Mom always said twins liked the same things, but Jake didn't think mom knew much about twins.

Granny whipped out a ball of lumpy, black yarn and a pair of needles from her yarn basket. "We'll start with something easy." And then her fingers flew across and around the needles, casting on a small group of stitches. "Maybe a scarf for one of your sister's dolls."

Jake frowned at that. "What about my G.I. Joes?"

Granny's eyes crinkled up at the corners and Jake could see the corners of her mouth twitching.  
"I suppose."  
Jake couldn't help but grin. He loved when he could make grandma happy.

By the end of the afternoon, all of his G.I. Joes had their own scarves. They were funny looking, some with lumps and knots where he made mistakes and dropped stitches, but granny was still smiling so Jake was proud.

#

Grandma woke them up on their first day of school with a gift of sweaters. Jenny acted like she was embarrassed, but Jake could totally tell she was faking it. Her eyes were glued to the  
pink bunnies that grandma had knitted into her sweater, particularly the googly eyes and pom-pom bunny tails granny added on after she was done.

Jake’s sweater wasn't that fancy, all one shade of blue, but he wasn't like Jenny. He didn't need the sweater to be cool so that he’d wear it. What made it cool was that he could see the stitches that grandma  
had taught him -- the cables for luck and the the basketweave stitch for safety. 

As long as hewas wearing his sweater, he knew he didn't have to be afraid of going to school. “Can I try it on?” he asked.

“Of course.” Granny helped him into it and settled it on his shoulders with gentle hands, before leaning down to hug him. Then she whispered into his ear, “Promise me you’ll always wear this when you’re afraid.”

Jake nodded. “I will, granny. I promise.”

#

A month later mom and dad took the family out to celebrate how well Jenny and Jake were doing in school. Jake didn’t know why it felt so important, but he made sure that he and Jenny were wearing their sweaters.

Jenny dropped a slice of pizza on her sweater and stained one of the bunny tails orange, and Jake got too hot climbing around the restaurant’s jungle. He couldn’t figure out why it seemed so important for them to wear their sweaters 'cause all of the other kids were dressed up in sweatshirts and jackets covered in superheroes and TV characters, and he felt stupid in his blue sweater.But he'd made a promiseto granny, so he kept his sweater on, even when dad ruffled his hair and called him, "My little man."

#

They stopped for ice cream on the way home. Jake was so busy being careful not to spill a bite that he didn't see the car that jumped the median and slammed into their mini-van.

He only knew what happened because he overheard the policemen talking to mom and granny about it while he and Jenny sat in the back of the ambulance. All he remembered was pain, and then he had to listen to mom sob, while he was stuck on a hard bed for what felt like hours.

The police had said it was a miracle that everybody but dad survived. Jake just wished he'd made his dad wear the scarf granny had made for him. 

Mom had been wearing her hat and scarf, and he and Jenny had been wearing their sweaters. Jake stared at the scarf, bunched up in his hands. Maybe if dad had been wearing it, he would'veve survived.

#

Jenny wouldn't take her sweater off no matter what anyone said to her, not even for dad's funeral. It still had the stain from where she'd dropped pizza on it, but she wouldn't take it off. She even slept in it, so granny never had a chance to wash it, which was gross. Jake was tempted to wear his sweater, too, but he saw the way mom started to cry every time she caught sight of Jenny's sweater. He hung up his sweater in the coat closet, so he could wear the nice suit his mom had bought for him. 

He hated the idea of getting in the car to go to the funeral without his sweater, but he'd do it for mom and Jenny.

As he headed out the door, granny caught him and wrapped a scarf around his neck. It was black, so he had a hard time seeing the stitches, but when he ran his fingers over it, he could feel some of the stitches around its edges.

"Thanks, granny," he whispered, and felt safer already.

#

Granny stayed with them for a week after the funeral. She cooked and cleaned and even made sure that Jake and Jenny got to school on time. 

The day before she left, she gave Jenny a scarf to match Jake's, only hers was pink and covered in cables. 

The scarf was finally enough to get Jenny to take off her sweater. Granny took it away to be cleaned, but she never brought it back. Instead, it joined Jake's sweater in the coat closet. 

#

That was where the sweaters stayed. Granny gave them scarves, hats, even blankets, each carefully stitched with cords and knots to keep them safe and bring them luck. But Jake couldn't understand why, no matter how many Christmases and birthdays would pass, she never gave them another sweater.

#

Granny was diagnosed with cancer just before Jenny and Jake started middle school. Mom packed the whole family and most of their belongings into their beat up station wagon and off they went to spend the summer break with granny.

#

Granny's house was the same as always. Everything was covered in brightly-colored yarn. From the sweater-clad garden gnomes to the toilet paper and tissue box cozies in the bathroom. 

Jake always had the feeling it was why his mom almost never came to visit granny when he and Jenny would go. From her first sight of the garden, mom was frowning, but Jake didn't let it bother him.  
Five years after the crash, not much had changed. Mom could barely stand to look at the scarves and hats granny sent them, and he didn't know how she was going to handle living in close proximity to all of granny's knitting for months without snapping.

He expected her to start yelling at granny for not cleaning up, but she managed to stay polite, while wincing away from every table cloth and jauntily dressed figurine in the living room.

She and granny even managed to stay polite through dinner which was why Jake startled awake when he heard yelling that night.

He snuck out of the guest room, being careful not to wake Jenny, and tiptoed over the staircase where he could see what was going on downstairs through the railing.

"You promised you were doing better."

"I _am_ doing better," granny said. She looked like she was concentrating hard on her knitting, but Jake could see the way she sunk into herself as she cast her spells through each stitch.

"How? How are you doing better. This place is still covered in your junk. I swear if you had your way, you'd knit a goddamned house cozy."

"It's not that bad. I just want to bring safety, luck, and comfort to my home. I wish you could support me in this."

"I'm not going to support your delusions, mom. I know you think you can influence the world with your knitting, but that's not how things work. Not in reality."

"I wish you could have faith in the patterns, Jessica."

"And I wish you could face reality. The patterns aren't real! I don't know why you still want to believe that they are. It's not like they've done you any good. You're dying of cancer. What have your patterns done to help with that?" 

"Jessica." Granny dropped her knitting and moved to hug mom, and Jake almost wanted to cry. Granny was dying, and mom was right. How were the stitches going to save her from that?

"I can't deal with this right now," mom said, dodging granny and heading for the stirs.

Jake had to rush to get back up the stairs and into the guest room before she saw him.

#

It was a few days before Jake was able to ask granny about the fight he'd overheard. Mom had been doing her best to make sure that he and Jenny weren't alone with her for long. Mom said it was so they didn't wear granny out, but Jake had his doubts.

He finally got his chance alone with granny when she went in for her chemo treatment. Mom had turned green as soon as she'd seen the IV needle and announced that she and Jenny were going to the library to get the books she'd been assigned to read over summer break.

All Jake had to do was wait until the nurse had finished hooking granny up and left them alone.  
"Granny, why is mom so upset about you believing in the patterns?"

"So you were eavesdropping., I thought I heard somebody sneaking around." 

Jake shook his head to deny it. "I wasn't sneaking around. I just thought I heard something."

Granny didn't look like she believed him. "Of course you did," she said, and reached out to ruffle his hair, hissing when her IV got tangled.

Jake helped her get it straightened out and then held her hand.  
"It's complicated," she said. "And you're still so young."

Jake hated being told that. He was really mature for his age. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of answering, she leaned back and closed her eyes, like she was about to be sick. Remembering the nurses warning about possible side effects of the treatment, Jake grabbed the trash can and brought it closer to her bed. He could always talk to granny later, when she felt better.

When granny spoke after a few minutes, Jake almost fell out of his chair.

"When your mother was a girl, she believed in the patterns just like I do now. I taught her to make the knots and knit cables and she was very skilled at it. Then your grandfather got sick."

""Sick?" Jake knew granddad had died when mom was young but he hadn't realized that granddad had been sick.

Granny nodded. "It was pneumonia. Your mother expected him to get better. She even knit a scarf for him to wear when he left the hospital."

"What happened?" Jake asked, even though he knew.

"He never did leave the hospital. And your mother." Granny paused and shut her eyes, shaking her head. "She never forgave me or the patterns for that. She thought that if I'd tried harder to knit something to help him get better that he would've survived. She was angry when her scarf didn’t work."

"But?" Jake set down the trash can, feeling stupid for holding it so long. "Why didn't it though? The scarves and hats you've made for us always work."

Granny shook her head and smiled. "The patterns can make your life better, help you accomplish things no ordinary person could, but they're simply ways of channeling the patterns of life. There are limits. No pattern can change a person's destiny. That's the truth your mother was never able to accept." She reached over to pat Jake's cheek, this time remembering to use the hand that wasn't attached to the IV. "I don't want you to worry about this, Jake. Your mother has her reasons for hating the patterns and they're valid, even if they don't make sense right now. You'll understand it soon enough."

"Gran--"

But the nurse came in and started to remove granny's IV before Jake could figure out what he wanted to say. He'd been so distracted that he hadn't noticed that the bag had finished emptying.

"Thank you, Cindy," granny said.

"You're welcome, Mrs. Johnson. I'll see you in a couple days, okay?"

Granny nodded. "I'll see you then, and I'll try to bring some more hats for the newborns with me next time."

Cindy smiled. "That'd be great."

Granny leaned on Jake as they made their way to the door, through the waiting room and to the door where mom was supposed to meet them. 

Before they reached the door, granny stopped him, squeezing Jake's shoulder. "Can you promise me that you won't talk to your mother about what we were discussing?"

Jake looked at the door and then at granny. "I guess, but what happens if you get sicker and she doesn't let me make you a blanket to help protect you?"

Granny shook her head. "At this point I don't think it'll make a difference if you give me a blanket or not."

Before Jake could ask what that meant, granny stepped away from him and took a few wavering steps forward to climb into the station wagon's passenger seat.

#

After that day, granny's treatments became their time together. She'd take her yarn basket with them and they would knit. Or, if it was one of her bad days, she'd show Jake a new stitch and he'd practice while she rested.

That was how he learned the more powerful patterns. Patterns to find things and to change the way things were seen. There were even patterns to do harm and to bring bad luck. 

Jake enjoyed learning all of them. They challenged him in a way that not even school could, but mostly, he was just waiting for granny to teach him the pattern that would heal her. With so many patterns, there had to be one that could do that.

So he mastered every pattern that she showed him, hoping she'd teach him the one he wanted to learn most as she kept getting weaker.  
Finally, a week before summer break was over, Jake had to ask. He wanted to know why the patterns weren't making her better.

"I told you, sweetheart," she said, and patted his head, "the patterns can bend the universe to your will but they can't change your destiny."

"But if we made a pattern strong enough, then--"

She shook her head. "It won't change the fact that it's my time." She pulled him into a hug, and it just reminded Jake how thin she'd gotten. He could feel all of her bones digging into him.

"But why can't we change it?" he couldn't help but ask.

"This is just the way it has to be." And she hugged him more tightly. "Some day, you'll understand."

#

When granny passed away, Jake put her needles away. He hid her basket of yarn in the farthest corner of his closet, with his old stuffed toys, and tried to act like he'd never learned the patterns. That didn't mean the memories of what he'd used to create didn't pull at him. 

Every time mom threw away one of the tea-cozies or the clothes grandma had knit for her garden gnomes, he felt like crying. He couldn't forget how much time and love and magic granny had put into her knitting, how she'd given herself to the patterns with all of her heart and soul. 

At the same time, Jake was glad to see everything go. He understood why mom hated the patterns now. What was the point of them if they couldn't save the people you loved most?

He couldn't stand to hold the needles, because if he didn't touch them, then they were still grandma's needles, even years after she'd last used them.

So he spent his teenage years trying to do anything but knit. It wasn't that easy to shake off something that was as much a part of his life as breathing. He found himself staring at the closet on quiet nights when his fingers itched for the cool metal of the needles or the coarse pull of yarn between his fingers.

He dreamed of the patterns, too -- of all the things he could do with them, the tricks he could pull, the people he could protect.

#

All of that changed when he discovered computers. He'd dealt with them before. Who hadn't played a game of solitaire or typed up a paper? But when he stumbled across a book about coding while hiding out in the college library, it was like the world opened up to him.

He could see the patterns again, and no matter how much he swore that he wouldn't believe in them, he couldn't stop himself from making the patterns grandma had taught him. Only now, he made those patterns out of ones and zeros, bits and bytes. 

He got a reputation for being the best hacker in school, not that he was stupid enough to let people know that he was the mysterious hacker that messed with the meal plans and could get you reassigned to whatever dorm you wanted.

After a while, though, all of that got boring. There were only so many patterns you could practice by hacking a university's network. Jake wanted something more challenging.

#

He started with petty crimes. Getting enough money to make sure he didn't have to worry about college loans and Jenny didn't have to worry when her scumbag boyfriend ran off and left her with a baby.

Even when he had enough money, it didn't feel like enough. Jake needed more of a challenge, so he started hacking security systems, learning how they ticked and making them better. He even started to leave virtual shield knots and stitches on the systems that he cracked -- his calling card and a thank you for giving him more information.

He hadn't felt this good since he was young and thought everything could be solved with a few yards of yarn and two needles, so he didn't think twice about the consequences of using his patterns, because people never thought twice about somebody knitting something amazing.

Jake learned that it was different for coders. The web was the next frontier, and there were a ton of things a skilled programmer could do for his country. At least, that's what the men in black had said when they came for him.

#

It came as a surprise to even him, but Jake actually enjoyed being in the army. It finally gave him a chance to understand what granny had meant when she said that the patterns couldn't change destiny.

His first week in a war zone, he gave up counting on codes to protect him or the men he was fighting with. There were just too many places where you couldn't get internet access no matter how many satellites you hacked, too many times when his computer would run out of power, just when they needed it most.

Nobody ever blamed him, of course. They didn't know about the patterns and even a skilled hacker wouldn't be able to stop a bullet from meeting its mark. Jake knew better, though, and when another one of his friends got shot, because he couldn't get the codes to work, he had to make a decision.

#

Jake called them good luck charms and gave them out to everyone he met, soldiers and civilians alike. It became his new calling card until everybody knew about the crazy tech guy who gave out good luck charms.

What they didn't know was what the charms really were. Maybe the bands, made out of twine and shield knots, weren't that impressive to look at, but Jake still refused to knit anything so they were good enough.

They helped keep his friends from getting hurt, and that was all that he cared about. 

#

Fin


End file.
